Fonseca, Briceño and Hyde Vie for Pup Leadership

The names are in and the battle for leader of the People’s United Party is officially on. Past P.U.P. leader John Briceño got in his nomination first, on Monday, along with endorsement signatures from eight constituency chairmen from the northern caucus, except for Corozal South East where the area rep is Florencio Marin Junior. Outgoing P.U.P. leader Francis Fonseca was nominated early this afternoon, and we are told unofficially that he submitted a slate for all positions which are open on the Executive of the Party. In the wake of a loss at the November fourth general elections, Fonseca announced his resignation as party leader following his seventh defeat in elections since he became leader of the P.U.P. Cordel Hyde’s nomination was also sent in this afternoon, with endorsement signatures from five constituency Chairmen, four from Belize City and one from Cayo Central. The official announcement was made at around five thirty this evening by P.U.P. Chairman Henry Charles Usher.  

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman, People’s United Party

“For the post of party leader, we’ve received three nominations: the honourable John Briceño, the honourable Cordel Hyde and the honourable Francis Fonseca. For the post of deputy party leaders, we’ve received six nominations: honourable Florencio Marion Junior, honourable Jose Mai, honourable Julius Espat, honourable Mike Espat, honourable Rodwell Ferguson and honourable Kareem Musa. For the post of national communications director, we’ve received three nominations: Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Anthony Mahler and Emilio Zabaneh. For the post of national campaign manager, we’ve received one nomination: Victor Espat. For the post of legal advisor, we received one nomination: Anthony Sylvester Junior. For the post of treasurer, we received one nomination: Ramon Cervantes. And for the post of chairman, we received two nominations: Henry Charles Usher and honourable Oscar Requeña. Those are the nominations that we’ve received and they’ve been accepted.”

Henry Charles Usher

Mike Rudon

“Sir we understand that outgoing party leader, Francis Fonseca came in with a slate; that he wasn’t nominated solely. Is that correct?”

Henry Charles Usher

“There were some more nominations on that team yes.”

Mike Rudon

“Would you be able to say which one out of those that you’ve mentioned came along with him on his slate?”

Henry Charles Usher

“No, we prefer to leave it like this; the way I mentioned it.”

Mike Rudon

“Well then would you be able to go into what happens after this point in terms of the amount of delegates and procedure for voting?”

Henry Charles Usher

“Well this is just the first step. Today was just the deadline to get the names in. We still have to have another national executive at which these names will be tabled followed by a national party council and then the national convention on the thirty-first of January. We have a deadline of December twenty-second for the list of delegates to come in.”